To "British" RPers...

[Stan']

...this is what you get when you keep Labour in.  Those that don't want to work get rich with benefits, while those who want to work but can't get nothing.

The Davey family haven't worked in 9 years, because the bitch of a mother realised that by popping out more and more weans, she's better off than if she was working.

Thank Mr. Brown and Mr. Blair.

[Rider of Wind]

Hoe-ly CRAP. Now that bugs me. British or no.

[Neroon]

I've moved this from Bad and Ugly as this is a political thread.

I fail to see what this has to do with RPers especially, even though I do agree with the political sentiment expressed here.

[Trieste]

Somehow, I don't think that two people are responsible for something like this. First of all, the only date I can find in the article is 13 years - which is when the couple met. That happens to be just when Blair was coming into office. Somehow, I doubt that they saw the election and said "Oh! Mister Blair will take care of us! Let's get married and make the world's population pressure worse!". The kind of system that supports such a thing really tends to be years in the making, because in the first years people are on the lookout for faults. We are seeing it in the US with the health insurance reforms - the opponents of the current legislation tell us precisely what we should be worried about and they search out the gross examples.

Second of all, does your country not have a party system like the US? Did you not renounce monarchy in all but name? The centuries of blaming every governmental problem on a single person or a pair of people came to an end along with divine right. I found this particular quote especially damning:

"'It cost too much to carrying on working as we were actually better off unemployed,' said Mr Davey."

This speaks of more than just one person or one party's liberal spending spree. This speaks of a systematic problem, wherein you have workers who have lost hope. That means you need to work on the job structure, and make it more inconvenient to be on public assistance than to work one or two jobs. The trick is that you need to do this without humiliation, because for every Davey family and every Octomom, there are a hundred families that genuinely need the assistance. They don't deserve to be humiliated. It's humiliating enough to have to ask for help from the government.

Third of all, did you miss the part where unemployment is soaring throughout most of the developed world? It has little to do with Labour or Conservative or Republican or whatever (although I'm not saying they helped the situation) and more to do with a bunch of terrible circumstances descending on us all at once. Those who want to work in the US can't get much either, and we don't give a crap about Labour Party, BNP, or the Queen herself.

[auroraChloe]

...this is what you get when you keep Labour in.  Those that don't want to work get rich with benefits, while those who want to work but can't get nothing.

The Davey family haven't worked in 9 years, because the bitch of a mother realised that by popping out more and more weans, she's better off than if she was working.

Thank Mr. Brown and Mr. Blair. 

that crap has been going on in the states for ever. 

between these leeches and the grossly wealthy, those in the middle aint got a chance.

[GeekFury]

Happens alot around my bit, hell I know of people who get pregnant with 4 kids just to get a nice big house, yet I'm unepmployed but can't get benefits as I have enheritance in the bank yet the jb markets F'ed beyond repair, it's a sad state of affairs the UK's in.

[Soran]

If anyone believes changing the party in power changes anything, then think again... these are preened peacocks, selected by the ruling elite that we are ALLOWED to vote for....that does not constitute a democracy in the true sense of the word. (I won't mention that again... sorry!)

And yes, they are leeches who are dropping kids to stay on benefit... the ultimate scam.

[Stan']

I fail to see what this has to do with RPers especially.

It doesn't.  But a Canadian RPer isn't exactly going to be voting in next month's General Election over here...

And Mr Gordon Brown and My Tony Blair are just two people in a long line of Ministers that are to blame.  Everyone is aware of the current state of the Benefits System, yet they are doing bugger all about it.  Instead, they'd rather be taking advantage of their own benefits and expenses instead.

[Trieste]

Everyone is aware of the current state of the Benefits System, yet they are doing bugger all about it.  Instead, they'd rather be taking advantage of their own benefits and expenses instead.

What would you like to see done, in specific and concrete terms?

[September]

Nobody should be able to claim £42k a year without contributing anything to the economy.  I suggest capping benefit payments per person so they never exceed what they'd earn if they were on the minimum wage (about £11k).

[Trieste]

Except that having kids while being a single parent and making minimum wage means that assistance is gotten at least for the kids, so you'd be basically screwing them there... especially if the person could prove they've been trying to find work but just could not.

[Jude]

I agree their behavior is disgusting and the law should not allow for it, but as a reader of this article you need to be aware of the dangers of anecdotal evidence.  This article gives no statistics or facts about how widespread this problem is, so there's no context to put this abuse in.  It is possible (though exceedingly unlikely) that they are the only abusers of this system throughout the entire UK.  The question isn't "do welfare queens exist," it's "how prevalent are they," and "for every dollar that goes to people like this, how much is going to people who legitimately need help?"

No system is perfect, it's important to ascertain if the Daveys are the baby or the Bathwater so that you know what to toss out.

The emotional outpouring of reactionary outrage is understandable, but doesn't lead to cogent analysis.

I know in America there's a stereotype of lazy minorities receiving the majority of welfare assistance, and while minorities do receive disproportionate shares (as they also tend to be poorer), of any group the largest amount of money goes to rural white mothers.

[Beguile's Mistress]

I know in America there's a stereotype of lazy minorities receiving the majority of welfare assistance, and while minorities do receive disproportionate shares (as they also tend to be poorer), of any group the largest amount of money goes to rural white mothers.

I volunteer at a hospital, helping with the children.  Through that I came into contact with a single-parent support group that has a roughly 4:1 ratio women to men.  Casual reference to this demographic showed me that at least 4 out of the 20 women in the group saw nothing wrong with continuing to have children by any man available in order to stay on welfare.  Of the other 16 women in the group about half were employed and had child-care assistance from a family member or friend.  The others who were unemployed were in situations where child-care (i.e., day care) was prohibitively expensive.  Also, any chance for benefits for health care would be adversely affected by even the smallest amount of income as was demonstrated among those who worked and had a relative/friend taking care of their child. 

Most benefits are structured to encourage people to work by not giving them enough aid to exist properly.  Child support enforcement is a joke for most of the women in the group and the men who joined payed child support and didn't receive benefits of any kind.

Weighing the options and discovering that you're better off staying home and raising your children yourself while the taxpayers support you is a sad state of affairs but one that many choose.

[Jude]

20 people in the same location is not a representative sample.  That statistic is meaningless.

[Beguile's Mistress]

20 people in the same location is not a representative sample.  That statistic is meaningless.

Please read carefully as I didn't cite it as a statistic, simply a casual reference to a demographic I have knowledge of.  My comments are anecdotal and not meant to imply I 'studied' the situation. 

There are reasons why things happen and that is all I was attempting to discuss.

EDIT:  Also, unless studied by a qualified and impartial analyst statistics tend to be misleading.

i.e.,  Mike and Joe ran a race.  Mike came in second and Joe finished next to last.  Now, unless you know it's a two-man race you have no idea where either man placed in relation to the other.

[GeekFury]

Except that having kids while being a single parent and making minimum wage means that assistance is gotten at least for the kids, so you'd be basically screwing them there... especially if the person could prove they've been trying to find work but just could not.

Thing is, she's not a single mother and her husband left his job because he'd make more on benefits.

Personally I think if you're on benefits and not actively looking for a job you should get a family of 4's benefits and if you want to squeeze out more kids they should be take  away and put in an orphanage or with a family that's not using them just to get more money. They again I have the extream idea people like that should be chemically castrated so they can't have more kids if they intend to do it to cheat the state, or some form of restriction on their spawning.

*Waits for off world minning colonies to put these people in.*

[Trieste]

Would you mind explaining the benefit of taking these children out of parental care and placing them in group care (orphanages, foster homes, etc) when both of them are going to be state-supported anyway in a case like this? Given that group care homes have been famous in the past and are currently famous for producing mal-adjusted children, and given that a large proportion of the homeless population (which remains a burden on either the church or the state or both through assistance programs) consists of the mentally ill and the mal-adjusted, it doesn't seem like a particularly expedient solution, Geekfury.

[GeekFury]

It's not practicule, but I don't know,I just hate people that are doing this just to make more money, I mean while I'm looking for work, all my family works, they bust their asses to support their families yet this family think 'Fuck it I'll just breed and leech', and what makes it even more despicable, is she wants MORE kids, I ( Ok not me as I'm currently unemployed, but my family ) should not have to pay taxes to support people who give up their jobs to live on benefits then whine it's not enough, you know what? If you want money pull your thumb out your ass and work! If I want money I do odd jobs for family, imediate and exdended or even family friends. We don't have the luxaries of holidays abroad either yet they want more money so they can afford it? GET A JOB! Really gets my goat to think people like that who get fed with a silver spoon can turn around and ask for more.

[Trieste]

And that is somewhat the point of such articles: to make you react without thinking. It's also yellow journalism, which is irresponsible on the part of the publication.

[Oniya]

Except that having kids while being a single parent and making minimum wage means that assistance is gotten at least for the kids, so you'd be basically screwing them there... especially if the person could prove they've been trying to find work but just could not.

Except that the Daveys aren't a single-parent family, and have out and out said that they are choosing not to work.  There needs to be some incentive for the recipients to seek employment - and some kind of assistance to help them gain work skills if needed (possibly in the form of vouchers that replace a certain amount of the cash benefits.)

[Trieste]

No, but if there is a cap placed on all benefits, that doesn't just affect the Daveys.

That said, I don't know why there is not a more developed voucher system in place.

[Vekseid]

20 people in the same location is not a representative sample.  That statistic is meaningless.

Anecdotal evidence is a problem where 1) There is no other legitimate evidence to support the conclusion or 2) When you are trying to derive actual statistics from it.

There is other legitimate evidence, and she was making no real attempt to derive genuine statistics - just that four of the twenty that she personally dealt with had this issue. When you actually hear someone make the statement that they want another child for the welfare check - that exists as a piece of evidence. It's another incident and should at the very least be made note of.

The word of professionals in the field is actually quite important - it's a far more reliable gauge of when or why to do a study than political expediency.

I've personally experienced the "make any money at all and you don't get care" trap myself. It's easy to state that that sort of trap cannot lead to good things, it's easy to intuit the reasons for that, and at the same time, it's easy to point out that data gathering is important - but it exists as a reminder of the reality of the situation.

[September]

Would you mind explaining the benefit of taking these children out of parental care and placing them in group care (orphanages, foster homes, etc) when both of them are going to be state-supported anyway in a case like this?

Obviously it would be to discourage parents from irresponsibly creating children they can not afford to feed and care for.

[Trieste]

If it were obvious, I wouldn't have had to ask, would I? :)

[Vekseid]

Obviously it would be to discourage parents from irresponsibly creating children they can not afford to feed and care for.

I think all of this is dancing around the unfortunately necessary topic of whether or not we should sterilize people.